About

Museum

€253,328

3,684

Museum is a 2 to 4 player game designed by Olivier Melison and Eric Dubus. This game of historical set collection will see players taking on the mantle of Curator in one of the world’s great museums.

Discover lost civilisations from four continents and acquire relics to display in your galleries. Each object you exhibit will earn you points! Additionally, at the end of the game, you’ll score more based on the size of your different Collections, which can be based on Civilisations or Domains. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!

The world will keep turning as you play however and you’ll have to contend with historical events that may make the acquisition of artefacts harder, as well as facing the scrutinising gaze of public opinion.

Will your Museum go down in the annals of history? Or will it simply be a footnote?

Museum is a « big box » game of set collection that allows you, as the curator, to choose the strategy that suits you best. Accomplished gamers will be able to draw out all the depth and complexity from the game’s mechanics yet its simple rules can be easily adapted to suit newer and younger players.

The fruit of over a year’s research, the 180 objects included in the game are real and each one has been lovingly redrawn by Vincent Dutrait.

The cards are also furnished with accurate historical information, bringing each artefact to life! This continues into the rest of the game which has been designed to provide a fun and immersive experience featuring almost 300 unique illustrations!

A challenging set collection game that can also be adapted to suit less experienced players.

A beautiful game featuring almost 300 unique illustrations by Vincent Dutrait.

Rich historical content that will pique your curiosity!

From 2 to 4 players with a duration of 15-20min per player.

The Central Board represents the organised chaos that was a curator’s desk during these wonderous times! On it, you’ll find many of the elements required during the game.

Most prominent are the 4 Continents and the available Objects brought back for your consideration by industrious explorers. During the game you’ll be attempting to amass collections of these cards. Collections can either be based on the treasures of one Civilisation in particular, or be themed on artefact Domains, and ensure you additional points at the end of the game.

Each card possesses a Value (used when purchasing/scoring cards), a Civilisation/colour (used when scoring collections based on civilisations) and a Domain/icon (used when scoring collections based on domains). Each of these authentic objects also has a Name, Illustration and Description. These don’t have any effect on the rules but will give you a much better sense of what the game is about!

At the start of your turn you can choose one of the eight object cards available on the main board and take it for free. These cards will serve bothfor scoringitems and as currency in the game as in Museum, objects are purchased using other objects! So, choose your card wisely…do you want to exhibit a card, or do you need it to pay for something more interesting? Maybe both?

Other players don’t sit idly by during your turn either. After you’ve chosen one, all the other players may also take a card. If they do though, you get Prestige Points! Prestige points represent the favours and honours your museum accumulates during the game and can be used to purchase cards!

Once all players have taken a card, you can move on with your action phase. Each player has a Museum Board representing the hallowed halls of their great establishment and it’s in this part of the turn that you’ll be filling yours with wonders from around the world.

You have two actions available to you:

You can furnish your museum (placing cards down)

or

Perform an Inventory (picking cards up).

To play a card into your museum you simply discard other cards of equal or greater value. You can also use any prestige points you collect to pay for cards too. Whenever you play objects into your museum, you score their value in points. There’s no limit to how many objects you can purchase in one turn, as long as you can pay for them!

Discarded cards aren’t lost however! Your Discard Pile represents your museum’s storage and Objects in there can still be played exactly as if they were in your hand, with the exception of course being that you can’t use them to pay for other cards.

However, as you’ve shown that you’re not as interested in these cards, you leave them open to being taken by other parties who may have a better use for them! Effectively; cards that are in your discard pile aren’t available only to you, any other player can now access them too! Any player can purchase a card from your discard pile. If they do so though, they must give you one of their Prestige points as payment!

Instead of playing cards down you can pick them up! This action allows you to take all the cards from your discard pile and place them back in your hand. Although you won’t be able to do anything else that turn, it will allow you to (maybe) get a full hand of cards back and ready to use again as well as keeping them out of the reach of your opponents!

Once you’ve performed one of these two actions any missing objects cards on the central board are replaced and play passes to the next player!

This represents the basic rules and structure for each turn of the game: play will continue to pass from one player to another as each of you improves upon your collections.

If you think that the game is going to let you do that peacefully though, you’re in for a surprise:

Headline cards: Historical events will unfurl as the game advances, having a direct effect on players. Headline cards can make it harder, or easier, to acquire objects as well as having other amusing or challenging effects.

Notoriety Cards: As your Museum grows so will the different favours you can call in. Notoriety cards are powerful single-use abilities that can give you an edge during the game.

Personnel: A good museum needs the right people to help run it and that’s where personnel cards come in. Representing experts from different fields, these individuals can help you enrich your collections and score more points at the end of the game.

Public Opinion: Hidden within the continent decks are Public Opinion cards. These represent the press noticing curators that have been taking lots of artefacts from certain Continents, without ever displaying them to the public! These can accumulate on different continents, leading to lost points at the end of the game if you don’t manage your discard pile properly!

Patron Cards: Rich patrons of history and art are more than willing to help you in your endeavour, all you’ll have to do is meet some of their requests. You’ll choose one of these cards at the start of the game and they’ll ask you to assemble certain collections in order to gain more points at the end of the game.

The game Continues until a player reaches 50 points. This signals the end of the game as the public starts lining up to visit your establishment! The player in question finishes their turn and then everyone else gets one more turn before we move on to tallying up points.

Cards placed into your museum can be moved around as you see fit during the game as you search for those last items and perfect layout. At the end though you’ll need to decide on your final layout before your museum opens!

Collections are formed by placing cards orthogonally adjacent to each other, and consist of two categories: Civilisations (cards of the same colour) and Domains (cards with the same icon but different colours). The bigger the collection, the more points you can score!

Once everyone has finished organising their collections, your museum opens its doors to the public (with no small amount of pomp and circumstance) and we move into final scoring to see who wins!

First take the points you scored during the game and add those gained from your collections. You can also convert any remaining Prestige points into victory points too.

You then score points for your Patron card as well as your museum’s layout. If you managed to amass a big enough collection and fill your Grand Gallery (the red slots on the board) and/or your Entire Museum, you score even more points!

Finally, players lose points based on the Public Opinion tokens on the board. Each card in your discard pile belonging to a continent with at least one Public Opinion token loses you points! The more tokens there are, the more points you lose!

Your fellow curators will of course do the same and once scores have been tallied up, the player with the most points wins!

This is of course a summary or Museum’s rules. If you’d like to read the full version, you can find the work in progress Rulebook below.

Please note that this is a work in progress and not representative of the final product.

Museum is, at its heart, a set collection game. It's family orientated with just the right amount of rules and player interaction. Additionally, it can be tailored to suit more casual or younger players by easily removing elements such as Personnel, Events, Notoriety cards or Public Opinion to create an even easier, quicker, yet just as fun to play game. You can then add the different modules back in as the players become familiar with the rules and want to challenge themselves more.

For the more seasoned players out there though, don’t think that we’ve forgotten about you. Museum is a simple game compared to some, but it doesn’t lack depth. Whilst the game has been designed with a family setting in mind, some of you may have noticed some of the subtler nuances whilst perusing the rules above. From manipulating discard piles to “taxing” highly sought-after cards, there’s more than a few ways for gamers to get their kicks! On top of this, upcoming expansions will allow you to add other elements to the game and create a much more cerebral challenge!

Interested in the World's Fair Expansion? You can see a full explanation and playthrough here:

Interested in the Archaeologists Expansion? You can see a full explanation and playthrough here:

We'll be posting lots more video content during the campaign, including interviews with the game's authors and opinions from reviewers from around the world!

What would a good KS be without Stretch Goats? As we move further and further through the project you'll unlock more and more content including plenty of exclusive elements that will enrich your pledge!

From the seedy underworld of the Black Market, to the prestigious heights of the World Fair, there’s more to the world of Museum than meets the eye!

How do I include add-ons in my pledge?

1. Click on the “Manage your pledge” green button at the top of the page.2. On the next screen, click on the blue “Change your pledge” button.3. Then, in the current reward box you’ve chosen, increase the pledge amount by the value of the add-on and then click on the green “Continue” button.4. A new window will appear, click on the blue “Confirm” button.5. It’s done!

6. A few weeks after the Kickstarter campaign ends, we will open the “Pledge Manager” (PM) and invite you to complete it. Here you'll be able to tell us which optional buys you’d like to purchase and in which language (English or French).

Currently the game design for Museum is complete. You can see prototype copies of the game being played in the reviews and videos shown on this page. Whilst we’re very happy with the game’s current state, there may well be a few final modifications and checks to be made before we’re fully satisfied with the final result.

As for stretch goals and other content we may unlock during the campaign: The game design for the majority of these elements have been tested and finalized. Any remaining queries should be resolved not long after the Kickstarter has ended.
The brunt of the remaining work lies in the illustration work as you may have guessed.

The Core game is around 80% complete whereas the expansions require significantly more work. This has of course been taken into account for the announced delivery date.
As Vincent finishes the illustrations the rest of the team will be working on pre-production so that the game is ready to be sent to print as soon as possible. We’re planning for production to begin in late March in order to hit our planned delivery date of late July/early August.

However, all this depends on the route the campaign takes. We have prepared as much as possible but developments during the campaign may cause delays so please bear this in mind.

Olivier Melison and Eric Dubus have known each other for over 30 years, during which time they have played a huge selection of games together! Museum was born from their mutual desire to create a historically-themed game. When they're not creating amazing games together, Olivier works in international publishing, and Eric is a history teacher.

Vincent Dutrait is one of, if not the most, respected illustrators in the board gaming industry. Having worked on over 50 different projects (including Lewis & Clark, New York 1901, Robinson Crusoe, Broom Service, Lovecraft Letter, T.I.M.E. Stories, Augustus & Tikal 2...) his unique style of illustration and graphic design is popular with both players and publishers alike.
He has also had the opportunity to work on prestigious licences such as Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Fantasy, Pathfinder, Cthulhu and Games of Thrones.

Holy Grail Games is a board game publisher that was born from its creators’ desire to make great, unique games. HGG brings together the experience and passion of Jamie Johnson (community manager on multiple projects including Conan and The 7th Continent Kickstarter campaigns) Vincent Dutrait (renowned illustrator and artistic director) , and Olivier Melison (entrepreneur, passionate player and game author).

Well, the real question is - why not? Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general are amazing tools for game publishers and have revolutionized our industry. Financially it is one of the most beneficial routes of publishing and helps us ensure that everyone involved in the project earns a good living from each game. At the end of the day, this is what allows us to continue to do what we love! Kickstarter is also an amazing communication tool, allowing us to reach out directly in a unique and engaging way to those most interested in what we have to offer.

But that's not all. Beyond good business sense, Kickstarter allows us to prioritise quality over quantity. It allows us to only deal with games that we love and believe in 100%, taking the time and care necessary to push their development as far as it will go. In the case of Museum, it has allowed us to justify the extensive art budget that we wanted to attribute to the game. Simply put, games like Museum and/or their content would just not be viable with a "traditional" publishing method.

With the leeway and support afforded to us by these kind of projects, we can take a normal gaming experience and make it extraordinary. Via both material and content, our aim is to have all our games provide a unique, exciting, engaging and luxury experience!

We are aiming to deliver the game by August 2018. This may seem like a long time as the game itself is already quite advanced (as detailed in the "development" section). However, knowing the intricacies of board game design, fabrication and shipping, we'd rather include a good margin of error in our estimations in order to avoid disappointment.

Meeple Logistics will be ensuring delivery In Europe and the surrounding regions whereas Shipnaked will be taking care of North America and other worldwide destinations.

As mentioned previously, Shipping costs are not included in your pledge. After the campaign has concluded we will ask you to pay for shipping during the "Pledge Manager" phase.

Currently the shipping for this project is both EU, US and CA friendly. What does this mean? It means that backers from these two regions will not have to pay any import tax whatsoever when they receive their game.

However, even if your region is not covered by this: please rest assured that our dispatcher will ensure you pay the absolute minimum in tax or brokerage for your game.

Risks and challenges

No crowdfunding project comes without risk but we have done our utmost to minimise it.

EXPERIENCE

This is not our first rodeo, we have been involved in many Kickstarters before so are very familiar with any potential pitfalls.

DELIVERY DATE

We're estimating an August 2018 delivery date. This corresponds to the time we believe will be necessary to prepare the game for manufacturing, produce it and ship it to you. It also includes a safety margin too in case we come across any unforeseen circumstances.

It is in our best interests to get the game to our backers as soon as possible and we will do our utmost to ensure that there are no delays. However, it may be that a situation arises that is out of our control, such as issues with shipping, customs or problems at the factory. Should anything cause this date to change we will of course keep you updated.

REFUND POLICY

All pledges can be refunded -minus KS and Strype fees- up until the closing date of the Pledge Manager, no questions asked.

If, for any reason, we are unable to produce the game we will provide a full refund to all our backers.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Any costs shown in $ are based on the exchange rate in effect during the first day of the campaign.

By pledging to this Kickstarter, you acknowledge that the final appearance, materials and content of the rewards (and the Kickstarter) are subject to change and may differ from what is presented whilst the Kickstarter project is active.

You agree that our responsibility to you is to ship your order as entered into our pledge manager system, that title and risk passes to you upon delivery to a common carrier for such shipment, and you are responsible for import duties or any other duties that may be payable to the relevant tax authorities, providing correct address information and ensuring this address is deliverable by normal methods. We regret we are unable to ship to PO Boxes.